Issue 11

Spring 2014

“for the sleek witches who burn me at midnight in effigy because I eat at their tables and sleep with their ghosts”

Audre Lorde

This is for the house I lived in with its rafters of stonefor its hundreds of steps leading deep undergroundfor its murmurs and songsfor the well and bucket and ropefor the bats which troubled my sleep, for the crowslined up on the telephone wires, eyes yellow as cornbeaks filled with garbage and noiseblack feathers empty of meaning against the skythis is for the girl I dreamt of in the night of stormsthis is for her footprints in the mudher black hair loose and wet, her shoulders almost nothingbut bonethis is for speech, for silence, for the taste of bread and saltfor water cool on the tongue, for throats and tonguesthis is for burning when Autumn comes again, for leavesand smoke, beautiful bodies of ghosts and tables laden with fruit.